What is reality, really? Jandi Lin talks about Foursome

Yesterday I wrote about Jandi Lin’s appearance on Playboy’s faux-reality show Foursome, and today Lin talks about the casting process, which underlines the fact that reality TV isn’t real.

“That was just about the lamest thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “Fuck reality TV.”

“It was a very extensive casting process and not the best-organized. I felt like they wanted extreme sexuality and drama. They had me come in and do interviews on-camera, telling stories of my ‘wildest sexual experience.’ I told them about my needle-play experience in Berlin and how porn has broadened my sexual horizons. I tried to present a down-to-earth, well-rounded person… I should have realized that I was being interviewed for reality TV and that down-to-earth is probably the last thing they wanted.

“It wasn’t until the final interviews that I really understood how reality TV works. They would ask me questions and I would give these long, articulate answers. Then they would pick what they wanted out of my sentence and have me repeat it in a condensed sound-byte. At first, I thought they were just having me reiterate things for clarification purposes. I soon realized that they were feeding me lines and sculpting my experience into something misleading and overly-dramatic that they could cut up into previews and 30-second commercials.

But I’m sure I’m not alone in this experience… Which is why I´ve decided to never do reality TV again.”

In another life I worked at a company that produced reality television. One of the company’s shows was the original “Making the Band,” about a fabricated group of musicians, a la the Monkees with less charm and no interest in women. A receptionist in the office was cast as one of the band members’ (each of whom was gay) “long-lost girlfriend”. She thought it was her big acting break.

Previously: Jandi Lin is not a good Catholic
See also: Jandi Lin on MySpace